Lawsuits Against Believers: 1 Corinthians 6:1–11✞
Passage
In this letter Paul has been calling out the Christians in Corinth for their arrogant, boastful behaviour. Not just because it’s bad in and of itself, but because it also leads to other sins. In previous passages, for example, Paul has already chastised the Corinthians for “hero worshipping” some of the Church leadership instead of taking a sober approach to following Christian teaching, as well as for incredibly outlandish sexual behaviour by one of their members – of which the rest of the Corinthians were proud, instead of ashamed!
In this passage he illustrates another way in which their behaviour has not been Christ-like: they have not only been wronging each other in some of their business deals, but also suing each other over those wrongs.
1 When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?
It’s important to note that, again, Paul is talking about suing each other, not having people arrested; he’s not talking about people who have done things that are illegal. More on this below, but keep this in mind as we go through this passage.
We’ll get more into this as we get into the passage, but right at the top we see two issues – two opposite sides of this same coin, that are both problematic:
- People are wronging each other, even going so far as to commit fraud (v. 8✞ ), and
- People don’t trust their brothers and sisters in the church enough to settle these disputes
Paul’s main point in this passage will be on point #2, questioning why the Corinthians would go to the courts instead of having disputes mediated within the church, but they wouldn’t be having this conversation at all if it wasn’t for point #1.
So why does Paul feel so strongly that the Corinthians should be settling their own disputes?
2 Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! 4 So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church?
Let me just head this off before anyone gets too deep into it: I’m not going to talk about Christians judging angels, or judging the world. I simply don’t understand how it’s going to work, so I’m not going to opine on it. There are, however, a number of references to this in the Scriptures, so this isn’t a purely isolated thing Paul is saying out of the blue.
For example, in Daniel:
19 “Then I desired to know the truth about the fourth beast, which was different from all the rest, exceedingly terrifying, with its teeth of iron and claws of bronze, and which devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet, 20 and about the ten horns that were on its head, and the other horn that came up and before which three of them fell, the horn that had eyes and a mouth that spoke great things, and that seemed greater than its companions. 21 As I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them, 22 until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom.
Daniel 7:19–22 (ESV)✞ emphasis added
And Matthew:
23 And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” 25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” 26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” 27 Then Peter said in reply, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” 28 Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. 30 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.
Matthew 19:23–30 (ESV)✞, emphasis added
And Luke:
24 A dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. 25 And he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. 26 But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. 27 For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.
28 “You are those who have stayed with me in my trials, 29 and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, 30 that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
Luke 22:24–30 (ESV)✞, emphasis added
And even Revelation:
14 “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation.
15 “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. 17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. 19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. 21 The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”
Revelation 3:14–22 (ESV)✞, emphasis added
So I’m not saying this is some obscure reference; it’s something that occurs in a number of places in the Bible. I’m just saying that I, personally, have no idea what this will look like. How will I take part, with God, in judging the world? Isn’t that His domain? In an earlier passage of this letter Paul said that he doesn’t even feel competent to judge himself, but Christians will judge the world? Will judge angels? I don’t know how it will work.
But I do know that, if that’s true, in some shape or form, we should definitely be able to handle “trivial cases” within the church. If someone creates a shady business deal with someone else in the congregation, we should be able to handle it internally; if someone creates a perfectly valid business deal and is accused of creating a shady deal, we should be able to deal with that, too.
But, despite all the things the Corinthians boast about, they simply don’t know how to handle their own issues:
5 I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, 6 but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? 7 To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? 8 But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers!
Paul’s point is more about the fact that the Corinthians should be able to handle their own issues, but it’s not forget that we’re also hurting our witness to non-believers. By suing each other, the Corinthian Christians were telling the world that they were just like everyone else: the Corinthian Christians created shady business deals just like the non-Christians; they sued each other, just like the non-Christians. What, really, was the difference between a Christian in Corinth and a non-Christian?
And then, to drive home his point, Paul says something that we usually take out of context:
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Now here’s a point where I have to talk about the Greek, which is difficult because I don’t speak Greek. 🙂 But there is a word Paul uses a few times in this passage:
- In verse 1✞ he talks about the Corinthians going before the “unrighteous” magistrates, which is the Greek adjective adikos
- In verses 7–8✞ he says, “Why not rather suffer wrong?” and “You yourselves wrong and defraud,” where “wrong” is the same word in verb form: adikeō
- In verse 9✞ he says, “the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God,” and “unrighteous” is the Greek adjective adikos again
The point being that, when Paul says that Corinthians are “wronging” each other and that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, he’s using the same Greek word (or a form of it) that he used when talking about the non-Christian magistrates. In other words, this is such a serious manner that Paul is calling into question whether the people behaving this way are actually Christians.
Once again, it’s worth reminding ourselves that Paul was writing a letter. Verses 9–11 aren’t an isolated passage on their own, they’re part of a larger point Paul is making. His intent was not to create a list of behaviours for which we can “judge” people, his point is to say that Christians, in general, will act like Christians, and non-Christians, in general, won’t. If Paul were writing this letter today, I’m guessing he’d have a different list of behaviours to call out, but the point would be the same: “You’re Christians now, Corinthians, so act like it!”
If you really want to use this list to prove that homosexuality is a terrible sin, remember that, according to this list, it’s exactly as bad as being greedy or a swindler. Or—get this—a “reviler.” Are you contemptuous of others? It’s on par with those who are greedy or who are adulterers or homosexuals.
But Paul is not calling into question the salvation of all of his readers; in general, the people he’s writing to were washed, and sanctified, and justified. And (to bring it back to the point of the passage), they’re able to judge between members of the congregation, when necessary.
Thoughts
Some thoughts here on the difference between Christians suing each other as opposed to calling the police when crimes are committed, as well as a long diversion on social media…
Suing vs. Breaking the Law
I’ll admit that I’m a little out of my depth here because I’ve never studied law – not modern law in Canada where I live, nor the history of the law, or how it worked out specifically in Paul’s day. I find myself wanting to use phrases like “civil law as opposed to criminal law,” except I don’t trust my knowledge of the concepts well enough to know if I’m using those terms correctly. However, there is a real difference between suing each other and calling the police when a crime has been committed. Paul explicitly says in verse 2✞ that he’s talking about “trivial cases” in this passage, which is important.
I don’t want Christians to read this passage and decide we should never involve human authorities for anything. There is a history, in the North American Church, of us taking that approach, and I think we’re taking what he’s saying too far. Especially, I hate to say, when it comes to things like child abuse.
We’re loathe to bring in the authorities because we think this passage means that Paul is against doing so, but I don’t think he’s saying that at all. There is a very great difference between calling the police when someone has committed a crime and suing someone because they have ripped you off in a business deal.
I will say straight up that, if we ever encounter abuse of a child in my local church, we’d be involving the authorities immediately. This isn’t the kind of thing you judge internally; the human authorities exist for criminal cases like this – including the consequences if the person is found guilty1.
“But,” some might say, “Paul never made that distinction, so why are you?” And it’s true, Paul never distinguished when to call the police vs. when to handle matters internally; I think, however, that we have a pretty good answer as to why he didn’t: because police—especially as we understand the concept in the 21st Century—didn’t exist when Paul wrote this letter. There were some governmental bodies in the Roman Empire that were sort of like what we would call police today, but there were some big differences:
- They were pretty much part of the Roman military. That’s important because they were more focused on keeping the peace and putting down rebellions than arresting people for stealing or that kind of thing.
- They mostly existed in Rome and, to a lesser extent, some other urban centres, so they simply didn’t exist in other places.
So, yes, there were some police-like forces that existed, but, unless you were fomenting rebellion, you’d probably never come across them. For the most part, Roman citizens simply sorted things out for themselves, or, if applicable, maybe sued each other, which is the topic of this passage. If you did get the police-like authorities involved, their consideration was not “has a law been broken,” it was, “will this mean trouble for the Emperor?” So if you get caught stealing from the market by a Roman soldier, and he decides that stealing is the kind of lawlessness that will cause trouble for the empire you might face consequences, but if he decides that the emperor has better things to do than to punish people for stealing, he simply won’t care what you’ve done.
I will also say that things are legitimately more complicated in the 21st Century than they were in the 1st . I probably wouldn’t trust anyone who comes up with hard-and-fast rules as to when to involve human authorities and when not. There will be some really obvious cases at the edges—call the police when someone abuses a child, but don’t go to the law when someone takes advantage of you in a business deal, for example—but there would be a whole lot of situations between those two extremes that are harder to figure out. So be it! That’s why we have the Spirit; that’s why we have the Word; that’s why God gave us leaders of the Church, who are devoted to thinking about such things carefully. I’m not saying He’ll make it easy; He never promised He would.
Social Media
So… here comes a long diversion, but… does this apply to social media, too? 🤔 (Or maybe I should say, “the court of human opinion…”)
Social media is a completely new thing, and I think we sometimes fail to realize how different it actually is from what came before.
If I compare, say, email to old fashioned paper-based mail, there’s a direct correlation. I’m writing a message to someone and having that message delivered to them. It’s fundamentally the same thing but with a much more efficient delivery mechanism. I think everyone can get their heads around what email is, and how it’s better in some ways and worse in others than “snail mail.”
But then we created blogs, which… are sort of like having your very own newspaper or magazine. You can write something and, depending how popular your blog is, it could be read by dozens, hundreds, thousands, even millions of people2. We could say that having a blog is just like having a newspaper or a magazine, similar to how email is just like mail, but… that’s kind of missing the point because everyone in in the world having their own newspaper or magazine was simply not logistically possible. Before the invention of email anyone could send a letter; before the invention of blogs, you could count the number of newspapers and magazines in the world. It would be difficult to get a precise number, but it would be theoretically possible; it was a finite number. But how many people had blogs, back when blogs were a big thing? It was so easy to create one that people would create multiple, and abandon them. It was simply impossible for me to have started a newspaper or magazine in 1990; it would take only a few seconds of my time, in 2001, to create a blog, where I could say whatever I wanted, and anyone with the URL could read it.
Even if we compare blogs to zines, the comparison would fall short. Zines were a form of home-grown magazine, self-published, usually on a very specific topic. These are much closer in nature to blogs, and the barrier to entry was much lower than traditional magazines, but there was still an upper limit as to how far a zine could get distributed. Someone publishing a zine out of their garage simply couldn’t print enough copies to get it out to millions and millions of subscribers, let alone cover the postage costs of doing so. Even the most popular zines probably measured their readership in the thousands, not in the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions. But a blog could! To be sure, most blogs didn’t have much of a readership at all, but the technology made it possible for wide readership the way a zine could never have done. Frankly, using this blog as an example, if something happened and there were suddenly millions of readers coming here, I wouldn’t have to do anything different! I don’t have any costs that would go up, I wouldn’t have extra logistics; the most I’d have to do is spend more time looking at comments, since higher readership typically means higher engagement in the comments.
So we see a spectrum, where email is a lot like the mail that came before, and blogs are sort of like the newspapers and magazines (and zines) that came before, but also very different. And then we go even further with social media.
First off, I’m hard pressed to come up with a good, non-internet analogy for social media. Social media didn’t replace or improve something that came before, it was a brand new thing. It took little bits from blogs, and also from comment sections on blogs, and a little bit from chat rooms (which were, themselves, an evolution of email mailing lists), and then added in aspects that only applied in this new medium.
And the next thing we know, the average internet-connected person—which is pretty much everyone in the entire world (and no, that’s no longer an exaggeration, internet access is nearly universal around the world)—is in constant communication with people across the globe. We’re sharing opinions, we’re having conversations, we’re yelling at each other, we’re bringing out the worst (and very, very occasionally, the best) in each other. And the technology isn’t standing still, either, because I think anyone who’s familiar with the platforms would say that, say, Facebook is very different from TikTok, even though they’re both “social media.”
So… why is a blog post about 1 Corinthians 6 talking about social media? Because I think it’s directly relevant. Paul is saying that we shouldn’t be taking each other to court; we should be handling our disputes internally. How does that apply to someone in the church getting on social media and bad talking someone else in the church?
“Well,” we might think, “that’s gossip, and we know that gossip is bad, but it’s hardly something the church needs to be involved in!” Except it’s not “just” gossip, it’s now different. Going and telling a couple of friends bad stories about someone is bad; going and telling the entire world those same stories is different. There have been numerous stories about terrible outcomes—including fatal ones—from this type of “worldwide gossip.” It’s terrible to know that your church friends think something bad about you; it’s much, much worse to know that there are people in India and England and Sweden and South Korea who all think something bad about you!
And now, with social media, you can have all of those people telling you that they think bad things about you! Imagine going to church and knowing that your friends are looking at you funny because they think you did something bad; now imagine waking up in the morning to hundreds or thousands of messages from strangers all around the world telling you you’re a bad person.
To be clear, after all this, I’m not suggesting that local churches start policing social media accounts. I’m not even suggesting we start arbitrating online feuds. (But… on that last point, I’m not not saying it, either.) What I am saying is that the Church is dealing with a medium it has never had to deal with before, and Paul’s letter doesn’t cover it, because it couldn’t possibly cover it. When Paul wrote this letter the printing press hadn’t even been invented! We have the New Testament letters because people copied them, by hand, over and over, to preserve them. There’s no way he could have even anticipated the telephone, let alone the internet, let alone email or blogs or social media.
This calls for wisdom. Some churches are going to get very heavy-handed about it: ”Using TikTok is a sin! But… Facebook is ok, for some reason.” Some churches are going to be very laissez faire: “Do whatever you want! People are going to be good and bad people regardless of the medium!” By nature, I’m closer to the latter than the former, I’m always very comfortable with technology, but… I think the proper Christian approach will be somewhere between these two, and I think it will be a while before wise Christians start figuring it out. Maybe church leadership does need to get involved in social media sometimes, just like they need to get involved in business disputes – and also need to know when not to get involved, just like they need to know when not to get involved in business disputes.
Remember, technology moves at its own pace. New apps and approaches to using the internet are created as fast as people can think of them; it’s up to us to figure out how best to use them, and that takes time and experience.
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